Rickets (Mabel), the old nurse of Frank Osbaldistone.—Sir W. Scott, Rob Roy (time, George I.).
Riderhood (Rogue), the villain in Dickens’s novel of Our Mutual Friend (1864).
Rides on the Tempest and Directs the Storm. Joseph Addison, speaking of the duke of Marlborough and his famous victories, says that he inspired the fainting squadrons, and stood unmoved in the shock of battle:
So when an angel by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o’er pale Britannia past,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleased th’ Almighty’s orders to perform,
Rides on the tempest and directs the storm.
The Campaign (1705).
Ridicule (Father of). François Rabelais is so styled by Sir Wm. Temple (1495-1553).
Ridolphus, one of the band of adventurers that joined the crusaders. He was slain by Argantês (bk. vii.)—Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered (1575).
Rienzi (Nicolo Gabrïni) or Cola di Rienzi, last of the tribunes, who assumed the name of “Tribune of Liberty, Peace and Justice” (1313-1354).
*** Cola di Rienzi is the hero of a novel by Lord Bulwer Lytton, entitled Rienzi, or The Last of the Tribunes (1849).
Rienzi, an opera by Wagner (1841). It opens with a number of the Orsini breaking into Rienzi’s house, in order to abduct his sister, Irēnê, but in this they are foiled by the arrival of the Colonna and his followers. The outrage provokes a general insurrection, and Rienzi is appointed leader. The nobles are worsted, and Rienzi becomes a senator; but the aristocracy hate him, and Paolo Orsini seeks to assassinate him, but without success. By the machinations of the German emperor and the Colonna, Rienzi is excommunicated and deserted by all his adherents. He is ultimately fired on by the populace and killed on the steps of the capitol.—Libretto by J. P. Jackson.
Rienzi (The English), William with the Long Beard, alias Fitzosbert (*-1196).